I fly a lot, and routinely notice that the body scanners take about 5x as long as the metal detectors (and probably cause cancer). I regularly watch the TSA agents clear their backed-up lines by opening the metal detector for 30 seconds, sending 10 people through, and then closing it again (making the value of the scanner clearly questionable).

Lasrick writes: This is a fascinating read from Aaron Arnold of the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard's Kennedy School. Arnold points out that the Iran Nuclear Framework Agreement specifies not only that international inspectors will have access to all of Iran’s nuclear facilities, but will also gain access to Iran’s nuclear supply chain, in order to verify that components and materials are not diverted to a covert facility. 'To insure additional transparency, the preliminary framework calls for a dedicated procurement channel to approve the supply, sale, and transfer of certain nuclear-related and dual-use parts, technologies, and materials on a case-by-case basis.' Arnold points out that this is a tricky area, because Iran has shown extraordinary skill at getting around financial sanctions, and it's unclear what international body will monitor Iran's financial transactions. The article then details steps that could be taken to ensure that Iran's financial transactions are transparent and cannot be used to obtain dual-use materials, including the requirement that Iran join the international Financial Action Task Force. Great read..

chicksdaddy writes: In what may become a trend, an insurance company is denying a claim from a California healthcare provider following the leak of data on more than 32,000 patients. The insurer, Columbia Casualty, charges that Cottage Health System did an inadequate job of protecting patient data.

In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in California, Columbia alleges that the breach occurred because Cottage and a third party vendor, INSYNC Computer Solution, Inc. failed to follow “minimum required practices,” as spelled out in the policy. Among other things, Cottage “stored medical records on a system that was fully accessible to the internet but failed to install encryption or take other security measures to protect patient information from becoming available to anyone who ‘surfed’ the Internet,” the complaint alleges.

Disputes like this may become more common, as insurers anxious to get into a cyber insurance market that's growing by about 40% annually use liberally written exclusions to hedge against 'known unknowns' like lax IT practices, pre-existing conditions (like compromises) and so on. (http://www.itworld.com/article/2839393/cyber-insurance-only-fools-rush-in.html)

StartsWithABang writes: It’s one of the cardinal laws of physics and the underlying principle of Einstein’s relativity itself: the fact that there’s a universal speed limit to the motion of anything through space and time, the speed of light, or c. Light itself will always move at this speed (as well as certain other phenomena, like the force of gravity), while anything with mass — like all known particles of matter and antimatter — will always move slower than that. But if you want something to travel faster-than-light, you aren’t, as you might think, relegated to the realm of science fiction. There are real, physical phenomena that do exactly this, and yet are perfectly consistent with relativity.

Zothecula writes: Just weeks after producing its first batch of synthetic diesel fuel made from carbon dioxide and water, Audi has laid claim to another synthetic, clean-burning and petroleum-free fuel called "e-benzin." The fuel was created by Audi's project partner Global Bioenergies, in France.

BS. It's not like people are turning down Jobs at Google and Apple because they don't pay enough or wont negotiate on salary. These companies are hiring everyone that's qualified and passes the interview. The advanced tech worker shortage is real and is completely orthogonal to salary shenanigans.

Yes, the concern is real and common. The antidote is building stuff. A bunch of stuff. The more stuff you build, the more likely it is you'll have to get "dirty" with the underlying guts of it, the more you'll know, and the more valuable you'll be.

For instance:Of the many garbage collectors Java offers, have you ever used anything but the default? Do you have any idea what the trade-offs are and when you might want to use another one?Have you ever profiled any Java code?What do you know about Java byte code?Ever SWIG wrap anything into Java?Ever used Java serialization? Do you know what's wrong with it and why you wouldn't want to use it?Custom class loaders?

My adivce: go learn everything there is to know about "something", it doesn't really matter what (maybe you want be the worlds foremost expert on malloc). In the process of gaining a very, very deep understanding of that 1 specific sliver; you're going to also learn about a ton of other stuff on the way.

fangmcgee writes: An expert Lego Technic builder, Nicolas Lespour has turned what many consider child’s play into a full-fledged career. Latest among his toys? An automated mechanical loom that weaves fabric from multiple bobbins of colored yarn. Presented on Monday at Fana’Briques 2012, a convention Lego enthusiasts organize annually in Rosheim, France, Lespour’s invention comprises 20,000 individual Lego components, including a fly-shuttle mechanism that delivers the weft into the warp with little human intervention.